Description

Awakening in an abandoned archaeological desert dig site, the player of this rudimentary, sophomoric satirical text adventure (derived from Infocom's Infidel) is brought up to speed through plot-advancing notes kindly left behind by Francisco Roboff (on loan from the Mask of the Sun), a "friend" who returned to civilization with all the treasures he'd surreptitiously excavated from the pyramid dig site save one, the golden coffin he couldn't find -- and left his old pal behind to unearth.

After some cursory to-ing and fro-ing, the player accesses the subterranean vaults of the buried pyramid, discovering no fewer than nine different deathtraps and a peculiar motivation to experience them all first-hand. Should the player succeed, in this self-effacing goal, boundless treasure awaits in the form of the golden coffin... as well as a somewhat inscrutable joke about the author's high school geometry class.

Reception

A young Andrew Plotkin's mind was blown to see his parody game reviewed a year after release in Kim R. Schuette's The Book of Adventure Games II, rubbing elbows with genuine Infocom releases. He reports on his confused reaction:

You can imagine how I felt, fifteen years old, when I saw that. Well, you can't. I can't reconstruct it either. I think I was mired in a flatly incoherent mixture of "I am famous!" and "This isn't really a very high-profile book" and "Look! I matter!" and "This will impress Mom" and "Is this what it's like to be a grownup? Does this happen all the time?"

Twenty-plus years later, I can say, no, it doesn't happen all the time. But sure is nice when it does.